


Wrong Moment

by Merfilly



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 05:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Clara-fragments try to help the Doctor, sometimes they arrive at the wrong point. But then, maybe the Doctor needed her then too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



It was not a trick the Doctor used all that often. He'd used it even less since he'd regenerated this time, as the TARDIS was still slowly recovering her configurations. However, sometimes a being needed alone time. And so the Doctor would run off into the labyrinth of his beloved vessel, trusting the TARDIS to guard his passage until such time as he chose to be found or was truly needed.

He really needed to just think, to find his own frame of mind and settle into it. He didn't think he had been this confused by who he was in all of his regenerations.

There was a small danger involved in willfully getting lost within the TARDIS. While she kept a linear path for her inhabitants at all times, she did contain multitudes of time-streams hidden within her. The Doctor vaguely remembered accidentally encountering a ghost image of himself from some other point in time once before. Such moments could be dangerous and build instability points.

That immediately came to mind as he rounded a corner to see someone that was a total stranger. It appeared to be a female humanoid, rather on the young side physically, and she reacted to his presence with a widening of her eyes.

"You're not me," the Doctor swiftly said. He'd never learned fine enough control over the regeneration process to cause his body to opt for something so outwardly feminine. 

"No. But … there is something I need to tell you. If I could only remember." She caught the corner of her lip between even, white teeth.

Obviously she came from a species with good dental care. The thought chased through his mind as rapidly as his realization that no one should be this deep inside the TARDIS that he did not know.

"Err, yes, well… you aren't one of my Companions so far as I can recall." Who could she be?

Her eyes brightened at his words, and the lip-chewing turned to a bright smile. "Not yet. Or at least, maybe? Unless you forgot me. When I did it. Because I had to, you see. I had to do it." Her face scrunched up into a frown. "Something to tell you…"

The Doctor cleared his throat. "One, you should not be here. Two, messages from the future are dangerous. Three… I'm curious. The TARDIS —"

"— oh, yes, the TARDIS. I thought she didn't like me. But I think she was just reacting, because of what I did."

The Doctor closed his mouth and studied her for a minute. "I really shouldn't be talking to you."

"But you have to listen. You have to know why… they or it or —" She cut herself off in order to concentrate. "You have to be careful, Doctor. All of you. They/it want to erase you in all your time streams," she finally managed to say, though it cost her, making her pale a little. She almost looked ghostly in fact. "I think I landed wrong for this one. I don't know why. I… there are glimpses, of me seeing you, all of you, calling out to you, to warn you." She met his eyes then. "I think I talked to you once." She put an ethereal hand on the wall of the corridor, and the Doctor noted that the lighting muted, becoming a soft focus around this strange woman.

"Who are you?" he asked. "So I will know you, when I meet you."

"You have a friend. Will have a friend? A piece of me remembers a shadow of her. She says 'spoilers'." The woman tried to draw a deep breath, and faded a little more from his sight. "Impossible is what I am. And this is not the right place/time. The TARDIS knows. She protects you, helps me find you." She gave him a sweet smile. "Take care of her, and I will see you again, at the right time."

With that, she faded from his sight, leaving the Doctor more disturbed than when he'd come to get lost in his most faithful Companion.

"I don't know what to make of that. I am certain that has never happened before."

The TARDIS did not actually laugh at his pronouncement, but he had the distinct impression she was amused by his declaration.

"Ah well, perhaps I should get back to the others." He didn't know anything about the girl, truly, but it had shifted something in himself. No matter who he was or would be with this face, he knew he loved a mystery.

* * *

"You are a quiet young woman," the Doctor said, unaware that Clara was trying to find all the right words to talk to this stranger that was now the man she had saved through his many lives. It would take so much to adapt, yet was any Companion better prepared for it? She had seen all of his faces, though the memories were vague and spotty at best.

"Do you remember me?" she finally asked.

"Not yet." He furrowed his impressive eyebrows at her. "We've spoken a few times. I know that much. The TARDIS knows you."

She leaned back so she could rest her hand on the wall, and the lighting suffused around her. It was such a small thing, but it made Clara smile. "Yes, she does. I think she's forgiven me for being who I am, even."

"And who are you?" the Doctor asked, knowing her name but now _who_ she was outside of that.

"Impossible. That's what you called me. The greatest mystery." She laughed, shaking her head. "When the mystery was only that I had to do what needed to be done. I think you knew who I was, down in you hearts, before I did. But memory, and time probably, worked to hide me from you even as I worked to help you. Maybe it was a side effect of the Great Intelligence trying to undo you."

The Doctor came and levered himself down to sit beside her, arms propped up on his knees and hands folding over one another. "You know more than I do right now. Isn't that scary?"

Clara considered it for a long while. "No, Doctor. Life is scary, if you let it be. But having you as part of my life, all of you? That's the greatest gift I have known yet."

He pondered that, then looked at his hands, before looking back to her. "We met in the TARDIS once," he recalled, though he wasn't sure when, or which face had been his then.

She nodded once, recalling the meeting at the wrong time and place, before she found the right point to help that face. "And we even spoke."

* * *

The Doctor looked at Nyssa and Tegan as they settled in the control room once again. The universe was safe, Omega was defeated, and there was something he wished to remember in all of that. If he could only recall what or whom he had seen inside the Matrix that made him certain the fight had been more than just keeping Omega contained.

"You're distracted again, Doctor," Nyssa said. 

"What, me? Never!" he announced as he set them in motion once more.

Tegan laughed, and the Doctor thought perhaps the TARDIS was laughing with her.


End file.
